There may be a way to teach teens to take fewer risks.
There is currently a study underway at Cornell University that involves a exposing teens to a stream of emotional books and movies that portray the positive effects of good behavior and negative effects of bad behavior. The idea is based on research that teens’ brains are hard-wired to want to take risks – but they make better decisions if the idea comes through their gut.
Teens do understand they could get in an accident while driving drunk, and they probably will contract HIV from unprotected sex. But those facts don’t scare them enough to stop them. “Teens tend to underestimate the bad consequences of risky behavior – they have no doubt they could get lung cancer from smoking – but they think – how bad could that be,” according to the Wall Street Journal, Nov., 3, 2006, pg. B1. The article states, “social acceptance and the allure of rebellion outweigh the costs later.” “Deliberately weighing costs and benefits often encourages risky behavior,” says Prof. Valerie F. Reyna of Cornell University.
Their emotions are stronger than any logical reasons – so giving them facts about the numerical risks won’t stop them. That information is suppressed in their brains. “One cause is the fact that the until your mid-20s, the brain’s frontal lobes are still maturing. Regions responsible for curbing impulsivity, thinking ahead and making sound decisions aren’t necessarily up to the job.”
When adults make decisions about risky behavior, they go with their gut. “As a result of knowledge, experience and insight, they grasp the essence, the gist, or a situation,” says Reyna. This, it turns out, is something teens can do too. Teens can avoid a behavior if they unconsciously know something is dangerous, and their intuition will get them to avoid doing it.
She and colleagues are doing that in a continuing study of 800 teens through books and movies. The idea is to make the thought of risky behavior reflexively trigger a no-go decision. All the evidence, as opposed to folk wisdom, says this is more likely to work than current tactics.
Update to article in the New York Times.
